An investigation conducted by Al-Jazeera has discovered that thousands of young girls are working in brothels in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.
Girls as young as 14 were secretly filmed working in the brothels which tend to attract a more local client’s than the foreign visitors that visit Phnom Penh.
One of the girls said “there were just a few foreign customers [at the brothel]…I never slept with any, I slept only with Cambodian men.“
Another girl who was just 16, told the undercover reporter “for my virginity they gave me $200.“
Local Clients
According to reports from Al-Jazeera, Mu Sochua, a politician with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former minister for women’s affairs, stated that most of Cambodia’s sex industry was supported “by local customers”.
There is a lot of corruption within the Cambodian law enforcement and government, many of these brothels are thought to be supported and financed by high ranking police officers as well as local government officials.
However, the police have made a few arrests over the last year and managed to close down several brothels, Mark Capaldi, from Ecpat International, an organisation working to eliminate child prostitution, said.
The Future
With most of the brothels clients coming from around the local area, it is up to Cambodia’s law enforcement agencies and child protection unit to shut down these illegal brothels who use young girls as prostitutes.
More needs to be done to publicise this story, so that it gains a greater stance in the eyes of the public causing governments and charities to notice this issue and do something to help these children.
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Rose Hawkins – rosehawkins21@hotmail.com
